1. Field of the invention
This invention relates to a method of creating a comminuted feedstock for use in a processing plant and has particular, but not exclusive, reference to cellulose-based feedstock materials which may be used, inter alia, in the production of cellulosic fibres.
It is known to use wood fibres as a feedstock for a variety of different industrial processing plants. The wood fibres can be supplied to users in the form of rolls of wood pulp sheet material which may have to be broken down into small pieces as an initial stage in the process. This invention is concerned with the method of carrying out a breaking down of wood fibre sheet material to produce small pieces for subsequent processing.
Wood pulp is commonly supplied to end users in roll form, each roll being categorised with reference to at least one particular property of the sheet material, the end user selecting which roll to use for the creation of a feedstock on the basis of an assessment of the value of the particular properties assigned to the rolls that are currently available for use as feedstock. The invention has particular, but not exclusive, application to the situation where an eventual feedstock required for subsequent processing is created by mixing together small pieces removed from the sheet material drawn from a number of different rolls.